


Only One Day Left

by amberfox17



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fate & Destiny, Jean-Paul Sartre - Freeform, M/M, Resurrection, Soulmates, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-09
Updated: 2014-10-02
Packaged: 2017-12-22 22:45:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/918895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amberfox17/pseuds/amberfox17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thor/Loki AU: Thor, Odin’s only son and Prince of Asgard, dies a glorious death in battle without ever meeting a jotun sorcerer named Loki. But he wakes not in Valhalla, but in the shadow of the World Tree, where the Norns are insisting that destiny has been thwarted…</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ugh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ugh/gifts).



> Tumblr prompt fill for [ohloki](http://ohloki.tumblr.com):  
> So, Sartre wrote this book called Les jeux sont faits and basically it’s this, there are these two people who are supposed to meet and fall in love and be together but then shit happens and they die before it happens, when they arrive in hell or whatever, the person in charge tells them that they’ll have a day alive again and if they manage to find each other, they can be alive and together […] I always thought it’d be a nice thor/loki au because entwined fates and souls and shit and wow with a twist of thor being a giant slayer and loki a frost giant runt.

_There is only one day left, always starting over: It is given to us at dawn and taken away from us at dusk._

_Man is not the sum of what he has already, but rather the sum of what he does not yet have, of what he could have._

-          _Jean-Paul Sartre_

 

The battle is over. Thor kneels in the carnage, his breath coming in shuddering pants. He cannot feel his shoulder, his leg, his left hand. His right is pressed against the gaping hole in his side, slick with blood and dirt and gore, Mjolnir abandoned at his feet. The blood pools beneath him, soaks through his clothes, clots in his mouth. He is victorious.

He is dying.  

He can hear Sif calling his name, but he cannot rise. His breath comes slower and slower and the sun-soaked battlefield is sliding away from him, darkness creeping in from all sides. He pitches forward slowly, the ground rising up to meet him, but he does not feel it, cannot see it, can see nothing but the shadows behind his eyes -

Thor dies.

***

When he wakes, there are people arguing somewhere above him; at least three distinct voices, all female, talking over each other at great speed, and he thinks a fourth, although it is further away and he cannot quite make it out.

“Hela is not pleased. Not pleased at all.”

“Well, neither are we, dear. It is highly irregular.”

“It is highly _necessary_.”

“ _Highly_ necessary?”

“Extremely necessary. Absolutely necessary. It is a necessity. Is that better?”

“Now is not the time for squabbling, darlings. I think he’s coming round...”

He has not thought much on Valhalla, though the certainty of his welcome there has often been a comfort, but he had always imagined it to be less...argumentative.

Thor opens his eyes.

There is no great hall, no crowded benches, no great feast and no beautiful serving girls. Instead, he is lying on a great tree root with three women peering down at him: one as ancient and gnarled as the tree, one rosy-cheeked and smiling, and one veiled and hooded, completely hidden except for her huge, dark eyes. They are all dressed in robes of grey, soft as silk, which seem to catch the light when they move, except that the shadows that cluster around them are always a heartbeat behind or ahead of the gleaming light.

They are the Norns. 

Thor leaps up in panic – or at least he tries to; he manages to get his feet under him but his head is spinning and he plunges forward, throwing his hands out just quickly enough to save him from smashing his face into the pale, unpleasantly flesh-like root he is lying on. He tries desperately to think over the pounding of his heart and his rasping breath –

\- he is breathing. His heart is beating. He has no wounds, no pain, and there is no blood. He lives. He _lives_.

“There, there, sweetheart,” says the smiling Norn, rubbing his back soothingly. She looks nothing like his mother, nothing at all, but for a moment her voice sounds the same and Thor relaxes, feels his body calm, and slowly, carefully, pushes himself to his feet.

He is standing amidst the roots of the World Tree. All around him, the huge, twisting roots rise up, curling around each other and thickening into a soaring trunk, reaching into the swirling clouds of nebula that illuminate the darkness. He can hear the roar of water somewhere far, far beneath him, where the ghostly roots taper away into the shadows, forming a great latticework, a skeletal cathedral home to the Corpse-Ripper, the sinuous serpent that scrapes the roots clean with the dull scales of its body.

To his left is a deep pool bounded by carved stone, fed by a spring that leaps from a fissure in the eternal Tree. There is a translucent jug balanced on the rim of the Well of Fate, with a pair of swans delicately traced in the crystal, and there is fine black sand scattered all around the well’s base. The sand forms patterns and whorls that seem to shift before his eyes, scattering and reforming into sets of footprints that do not all lead to the where the Norns are standing. He glances down and there is sand beneath his feet, encrusted on his boots alongside the mud and dirt of Asgard. He swallows hard and looks away.

“Be not afraid,” says the crone, with a smile that seems calculated to make him exactly that. “Death has no dominion here.”

“Why am I here?” he croaks, licking at dry lips. “I – I died. I remember dying. Why am I not in Valhalla?”

The Norns glance at each other.

“There has been a mistake,” the motherly figure says gently. “We have called you from the edge of death to try and correct it.”

“A mistake?” Thor repeats, bewildered. “You mean - I should not have died?”

“Well...yes and no, dear,” she says and pats him on the shoulder when he just looks at her blankly. “Come. It will be better if we explain it to you both together.”

“Together?” he says, looking around. “Who else is here?”

“Your soulmate,” says the old Norn, cackling, and steps to the side.

Behind them, lying on the ground, is a blue-skinned figure with a mass of tangled dark hair, wearing little more than a loincloth and a few scraps of fabric, feathers and jewellery. It is a Frost Giant – a very small one, yes, but unmistakably a jotun.

“What?” Thor says stupidly and it opens its blood-red eyes.

The jotun reacts much more calmly than Thor, scanning the environment before slowly rolling to a crouch. He stays there a moment, head down, before unfolding himself to his full height – which is no more than Thor’s. This is the smallest Frost Giant Thor has ever seen, and yet he is clearly not a child. A runt of some kind? A halfbreed?

“Hail, Grey Sisters, Urd, Verdandi and Skuld,” the jotun says formally, inclining his head in a small bow. “What need have you of me?”

“We would have words with thee,” the crone, Urdr, replies, just as formally. The jotun waits patiently, perfectly poised and elegant despite his rag-tag attire, and Thor suddenly feels a blundering oaf. He scowls and crosses his arms.

“Thor of Asgard, this is Loki of Jotunheim,” says Verdandi, still smiling. “Loki of Jotunheim, this is Thor of Asgard.”

“Well met, Thor of Asgard,” Loki says politely, but his eyes are wary as he scans Thor and with good reason, for Thor is famed throughout the realms as a great slayer of giants, the scourge of Jotunheim. Their people have been at war for the past millennia and there is no hope of peace in the near future, not even with Thor’s death. Thor’s hand slides to his hip, but there is nothing there: Mjolnir is still in the world of the living.

“Well met,” Thor says gruffly, forcing himself to relax. This jotun is no threat to him, even if he is unarmed; he has fought and beaten giants and monsters far bigger than this one. Loki's calm and his apparent familiarity with the Norns suggests that he is a sorcerer, and therefore likely treacherous and cunning, but in this place, Thor doubts anything will happen that the Norns do not wish.

“We have brought you both here, because this should not be your first meeting,” says Verdandi, looking from Thor to Loki. “You are soulmates, darlings. You should not have died without your paths crossing. In a thousand worlds you have lived and loved and fought, as kin, as lovers, as bitterest enemies. There can be no Thor without Loki, no Loki without Thor. You define each other, as light and shadow, two halves of one whole. You are soulmates.”

“What?” Loki says, eyes widening and composure shattering. “ _What_?”

This is impossible, Thor thinks, looking from the stunned Loki to the still and watchful Norns. Soulmates? Surely the very idea is but a fiction, a pleasant romantic tale, and one he has always liked the thought of, but not a truth, not _real_. But even if it is, then how can his soulmate be a jotun runt he has never met? A Frost Giant? A sorcerer? A _man_?

“It cannot be so,” Loki says desperately, clearly no keener on the thought than Thor. He is shaking. “Why – why do you mock me? What do you want with me?”

“We do not _mock_ ,” Verdandi says, all gentleness suddenly gone, her voice  like thunder, deep and resonant, echoing in the low thrum of Yggdrasil’s sap, as true and as certain as the stars that surround them. “Do you question us?”

“No,” Loki says, chest heaving, “but – but I do not understand.”

“It is not for you to understand,” Verdandi replies, as remorseless as the ocean tides. “You are soulmates. You are meant for each other. This is your fate.”

Loki looks away, struggling to stay in control. Thor looks at him and feels – he feels – confusion and pity and despair and an edge of fear that pricks his anger and – he shakes his head and tries to think. There can be no doubting the word of the Norns. Fate is as fate wills, this he knows, and he has sense enough to know a power greater than himself when it stands before him with eyes like fathomless pools, a thousand swirling stars drawing him down into her pitiless gaze.

 “I do not understand either,” Thor confesses, spreading his hands wide. “I do not doubt you, my Lady. But how can we be what you say we are and yet have never met until today?”

“Quantum,” Skuld answers, her voice chiming like a bell, layers and layers of voices blending together in each strange word she speaks. “Infinite possibilities in infinite realities. Everything happens everywhere, all at the same time, and that means sometimes, somewheres, it doesn’t.”

Thor frowns, utterly confused. Urd sighs pointedly. “How is that helpful to him?” she snaps at Skuld, who ignores her. “The weave of destiny has become snarled,” she says firmly to Thor and Loki. “The pattern is distorted. Your relationship, be it brothers, lovers or enemies, is one of the binding forces of the universes. Your destinies are entwined, locked together in love and hate, two strands ever circling, twisting together to form the web that holds the fate of the worlds. Without that bond, there will be no Ragnarok.”

“Ragnarok?” Thor says in alarm. “You mean our relationship causes the doom of the gods?”

“It does not _cause_ it,” Skuld says in her multitude of voices. “But it shapes it. It channels and directs its flow. There _must_ be a Ragnarok, must be a time of change, a calamity, a great overturning of all the structures and laws that suffocate and smother the forces of new growth. There cannot be a Spring without a Winter, no calm without a storm.”

“The bonds between you are always a key part of the story,” Verdandi adds. “For you both to have nothing – for you to be nothing to each other – risks upsetting the balance, the rhythm of these things. It is too great a risk, even for us.”

“You should have found each other,” Urd says irritably. “You _always_ find each other, no matter how many times one or the other is lost. Did you not feel a wrongness when you lived? Something missing, some essential part of you that you could not find? Did you not feel a need to explore, to seek out something more than what you knew?”

“No,” Thor says after a moment's reflection. “I always wanted a brother, and I never felt that I truly fell in love, but I was happy. I love – I loved my life. I never felt I needed more.”

“And you?” Urd asks, turning to Loki, whose fists are balled tight.

“Yes,” Loki hisses, trembling with emotion. “All my life.”

“Ah,” Urd says thoughtfully. “I imagine that is because you are a sorcerer and Thor is not. You are much more sensitive to the weave of fate, more attuned to the mystic forces of the universe than he is -”

“All. My. Life.” Loki snarls, and Thor realises he is _furious_ , shaking not with fear but with rage. “I have searched all my life to find the one who is for me, to discover the missing part of my soul and you are telling me it is _him_?” He flings a hand out towards Thor. “ _He_ is my soulmate? When he has just admitted that he has never, ever felt a need for me? That he was perfectly content to fight and fuck and waste his life, never stirring a hand or foot to seek me out? _That_ is the person I have been looking for all this time? A spoilt Aesir Princeling too stupid to even know what he was missing?”

“It is not my fault I am a warrior and not a mage,” Thor growls, temper rising. “I have never even heard of soulmates or entwined destinies before today.”

“I dedicated my life to improving my magic _for you_ ,” Loki snaps, eyes blazing. “I learnt how to walk the secret ways between the worlds so I could search for you. I turned my back on my people and my kin because they could not give me what I needed, because I felt your absence so keenly I could not breathe sometimes for loneliness and despair. But I knew it would be worth it, for I knew that when I found you, I would finally know peace and joy and happiness. I knew that you would _understand_ me. How else could you be my soulmate?”

Loki steps forward, tears bright in his eyes, teeth bared in a snarl.

“But I could not find you. I did not find you. I _died_ , alone and afraid, looking for _you_ , and now you stand before me and – what? Shrug your shoulders and say you never even knew I existed? That you were happy all the time I suffered? That you do not care for me at all?”

Thor opens and closes his mouth, staring at Loki dumbly in the sudden silence. He has never been faced with this kind of passion before and it stirs something inside him, something that urges him to close the gap between them, to pull Loki tight against him and never let him go. This new feeling is so strong he cannot help but raise a hand to reach out for him, but it is also frightening, the sudden need for this stranger burning through his blood, newfound desire crackling through him like lightning. Is this what Loki feels? Is this desperate ache what he has lived with all his life?

“I am sorry,” he says quietly, knowing that it is not enough, but having nothing else to give. He lets his hand drop to his side. “Truly, Loki. I did not know, and I am sorry that you suffered for it. But now that I know I _do_ care, and I am sorry that I am not what you wanted to me to be.”

“What good does that do me now?” Loki cries, gesticulating wildly. “We are dead! And I am still alone!”

Loki’s distress wrenches at Thor; he wants to console him, wants to run his hands along his skin and kiss his lips, to have him smiling and laughing, eyes bright with joy. He tells himself he does not even know Loki, but it is hard to think clearly when his heart is singing, when his very soul is screaming that this man is for him, is his and only his, that he belongs at his side for all eternity.

“You are not quite dead.” Skuld’s voice cuts through the thick tension, its strange harmonies causing it to resonate with itself. “And you need not be alone. We have brought you here to give you one last chance to rewrite your destiny. Together.”

“You will have one day,” Verdandi says, holding up a finger. “From sunrise to sunset. You must find each other. You must prove your love. If you can do this, then you will be restored to life, and the web of fate will reform. If you do not -”

“- then you will die.” Skuld says, her voices clashing discordantly. “Thor will go to Valhalla and Loki’s spirit will join with his ancestors in the ice of Jotunheim, and you will never meet again. The weave will be skewed, but it will carry on, shaping a future unknown and unseen. Perhaps this is the world where everything dies. Or everything lives. It will be an anomaly, a loose thread, cast off from the greater tapestry and watched from afar as it spirals away.”

If he dies, he dies, Thor thinks, but being cast off as a loose thread does not sound like a promising future for the family and friends he will leave behind, to say nothing of his people and all the Nine Realms. But how is he to find one lone Frost Giant where both of their realms are at war? If he goes looking, he will be thought half-mad at best and a traitor at worst. How can he simply throw off his responsibilities as the Prince of Asgard to go chasing after a man he has never met, with nothing but stories of soulmates and destiny to explain himself with?

Thor glances from Loki to the Norns and back again. He does not know how he will do this. But he knows he will. There is an almost magnetic pull between him and Loki now, and he takes a step closer at the exact same moment Loki does so, until they are so close he can feel Loki’s breath on his face. Want unfurls within him, an endless, aching need, and he knows it must show on his face as it does on Loki’s. Loki’s pupils dilate and Thor realises that the red of his eyes is almost exactly the same as the colour of Thor’s cloak. It has always been his favourite colour.

“One day,” Urd says, her voice as cold and unforgiving as the grave. “We cannot hold destiny in abeyance any further than this. There is too much at stake.”

“I understand,” Thor says, and he reaches down to take Loki’s hand and raise it his lips. “I understand,” he says again softly, his gaze fixed on Loki. “I will find you. I swear it.”

Loki’s lips part but he says nothing. He entwines his fingers with Thor’s and tightens his grip.

“One day,” Urd says again, but her voice sounds thick and slow, as if it is coming from far away, and the darkness is surging up between the tree's roots, the stars blinking out, the shadows thick and cloying, sweeping over him like a vast tide, their sibilant roar drowning out everything but the thunder of his heart –

***

Thor wakes alone, the rising sun skimming the horizon, painting the dull grey of the dawn sky with ribbons of shimmering gold. It is going to be a beautiful day.

He smiles and sets out.


	2. Chapter 2

One day. He has only one day, Thor thinks, to find and reach Loki. He had woken in the healing hall, the delighted and puzzled healers fluttering around him the moment he left his private room, unable to account for his near-miraculous recovery after being brought in all but dead from the field. They want to keep him close, to examine him thoroughly, but Thor pushes them away and hurries out, and if any think their Prince unnecessarily rude in doing so, well, they do not challenge him.

Presumably, Loki will wake where he fell, since he had said he died alone. But where is he? Thor curses himself for not having the sense to ask before the Norns sent them back. Loki had said he had learnt how to walk between the realms, so he could be anywhere, anywhere in the whole of the Nine Realms and all the hidden spaces in between.

Thor will need help.

His first instinct is to seek out his friends. Thor’s desperate defence yesterday seems to have caused a reprieve in the endless war, for there is no battle today, not even a border skirmish, although the sentries are alert and watchful on the walls. Sif and the Warriors Three are gathered outside the food hall, looking sombre and subdued.

“My friends!” he shouts, and is rewarded with a flurry of excitement as they rush over to him.

“We feared the worst,” Sif says, clasping his arm, and he hesitates, remembering how she called his name as he died.

“I was...lucky,” he says, and she nods slowly.

“Should you not be resting?” Volstagg asks, looking him up and down. “There will be no further strife today.”

“I have a task I must complete,” Thor says and their attention sharpens. He is unwilling to speak of Loki in such a public place, and so they retire to Thor’s tent. He looks at them, trusting and true, and wonders how much to tell them, what he can say to convince them that he has not lost his mind.

“There is a jotun sorcerer,” he begins, “called Loki. I must find him and bring him safely to Asgard. I do not know exactly where he is, but he wishes to leave Jotunheim and seek asylum with me. I know this is hard to believe, but I trust him utterly. I _must_ find him.”

“A deserter?” Fandral says thoughtfully. “Never has a jotun ever attempted to switch sides.”

“It would be a great advantage to us, if he could be brought over,” Hogun observes.

“True,” Sif says, frowning, “But only if we could trust him. He could easily be a spy, or a saboteur, or a double-agent. How do you know of this, Thor?”

“He – he came to me. In a dream,” Thor says awkwardly; it is as close to the truth as he can manage without sounding as if he has lost his wits, though by the looks on his friends faces it sounds exactly that anyway.

“A dream,” Sif says slowly. “Thor...”

“I know how it sounds,” he interrupts. “But it was true. He really did speak to me.”

“I have heard of such things,” Volstagg says, and everyone’s attention shifts to him. “Jotun mages are rare, but powerful,” he says. “Masters of illusions and trickery. It is said that they can send their image over great distances, and that these shadows can speak and hear as if they were the sorcerer themselves. If they can deceive the senses when one is awake, why should they not do so to a dreamer?”

“Thor is the son of Odin and Prince of Asgard,” Fandral muses, “and well known as the fiercest opponent of their kind. If Thor were to grant him amnesty, it could not be overturned, save by the Allfather himself.”

“Which would be ideal for both spy and assassin,” Sif points out. “Someone who can walk into dreams is threat enough a world away, let along coiled like a viper in the heart of Asgard.”

“A spy or assassin would still be of use,” Hogun says quietly. “Brought to Asgard and watched carefully, such a person would reveal themselves soon enough, magic or not. We could learn much from them, even if they are not to be trusted.”

“It is not inconceivable a jotun might turn away from his people,” Fandral says. “Jotunheim is a wasteland and we are winning this war. If it were me, I would be sincere in my desire to ally with Asgard.”

“But if he truly wishes to come to Asgard, why not give Thor his location?” Sif says. “Why speak to him through sorcery and not face-to-face?”

“I suppose he is afraid,” Volstagg says, “After all, Thor is no great lover of Frost Giants; he may not trust -”

“He trusts me and I trust him,” Thor says loudly, cutting the conversation short. “And now I must ask you to trust me. We have to start looking for Loki. It is of the utmost importance and urgency.”

His friends exchange worried glances and he knows how strange this must be to them, but he simple does not have _time_ to talk this over with them. He has wasted over an hour already.

“Very well,” Sif says, and though her eyes are troubled her voice is firm. “We are with you.”

Hogun and Fandral look less than convinced, as does Volstagg, but they all nod in agreement with Sif; whatever their misgivings, they will do everything they can to help him. Thor is truly blessed to have such friends.

“Thank you,” he says in relief.

“Do you have any idea where he is?” Sif asks. “Has he left Jotunheim, or is he near the border?”

“I have no idea,” Thor confesses. “But I think if I am close to him, I will feel it.”

That sparks an exchange of _extremely_ worried looks. “Are you sure you do not wish to speak to your father or mother about this?” Fandral asks carefully. “They are experts in magic far beyond our ken, and could scry for this Loki for you with ease.”

“Or you could ask Heimdall,” Sif suggests. “Jotunheim may be clouded from him, but he can turn his gaze to the other Realms.”

“Aye,” Volstagg chips in, “or you could ask your sorcerer to send some sign, some flare of magic through Jotunheim’s shadowy veil, and then we would at least know where to start looking.”

“If he speaks to him in his dreams tonight they could arrange a neutral place -”

“I have no time,” Thor snaps, temper fraying. “The palace is three day’s ride from here, and I must find him today. My parents and Heimdall are simply too far away to help.”

“Today?” Sif says, dismayed. “Thor, it is impossible. You have nothing to go on -”

“I have his name. I know his face. There must be a way,” Thor says curtly. They stare at him and he is losing them, he can see it on their faces. “Please,” he says, spreading his hands wide. “Loki is – Loki is important to me. I _need_ you to help me.”

“Oh,” Sif says quietly, and there is a wealth of understanding and resignation in that small sound. “Well, then there is only one option. We have to go and see the Enchanters.”

***

Asgard does not fight with magic, for magic is cowardly and treacherous and the antithesis of everything a true warrior must be. The women of Asgard may weave small spells at home, where such tricks are of use, and the Allfather alone may wield the great cosmic powers that hold the worlds together, but all agree that war is a place only for strength and honour and the clash of steel on steel. But all equally agree that Asgard’s enemies are wicked and devious, and very often sorcerers, and so Asgard must have some knowledge of battle-magic, lest she be overwhelmed by those who prize the arts she scorns.

The most powerful of Asgard’s sorcerers are Karnilla, Amora and Lorelei, but they are in the city, working with Frigga and Freyja and the war council, strengthening Asgard’s magical defences and trying to undermine those of Jotunheim. Here on the borders, that duty falls to the Enchanters Three: Forsung, Brona and Magnir, gifted with talismans and enchanted goods if not the natural power of women. Thor has always been suspicious of the brothers, believing that there must be a taint in the men, for why else would they turn to spellcraft and not swordwork?

Well, today, he means to put aside his old arrogance. He needs magic and so he needs the Enchanters.

“I need your help,” he announces as he enters the brothers’ tent, a dim, smoky space that smells of incense and herbs.

“The mighty Thor needs _our_ help?” sneers Magnir, glaring at Thor from over the ancient, brittle book he is reading. “What use could such as we possibly be to so great a warrior?”

Perhaps Thor had not been as subtle in his suspicions as he had thought.

“I have need of your skills,” he says, choosing to ignore Magnir’s disrespectful tone. “I need you to find a sorcerer for me.”

“A sorcerer?” Brona asks, straightening up from where he is bent over what Thor can only think of as a cauldron. His face looks greasy and wan in the light from the flames, but his expression has none of Magnir’s hostility. “We are sorcerers. Can we not provide you with what you need?”

“He is what I need,” Thor clarifies, the words seeming perfectly sensible until he actually hears them aloud. “That is, I am looking for a jotun sorcerer. I know his face and his name, and I must find him today, but I do not know where to start looking. I was hoping you could help me.”

“And why should _we_ help _you_?” Magnir mutters beneath his breath, but when Thor turns on him he drops his gaze and pretends to read his book.

“There is a story here, clearly,” Brona says, ignoring his younger brother entirely. “Let me find Forsung and we shall see what we can do.”

Thor waits impatiently as Brona goes to find the eldest brother, who is apparently at a very delicate stage of some kind of enchantment, ever-conscious of his time slipping away. Eventually the brothers return and the reluctant Magnir is forced into the semblance of good behaviour as they listen to Thor’s almost true account of what he knows of Loki.

“Interesting. Very interesting,” Forsung says when he is finished, eyeing Thor with an intense, worrying fascination. “You are not telling us everything. But that is to be expected. You are our Prince; of course we will do whatever you ask of us. It is...unfortunate, however, that you do not have more information for us. Our magic and the magic of the jotnar is as different as the rain and the sea – they may be connected and they may share a base element, but you cannot sail a ship on a raincloud and you cannot bring life to crops with seawater. That your Loki is a sorcerer only makes our task harder, for he will likely sense our searching and be at pains to conceal himself from it.”

“He may not,” Thor interjects. “He knows I will be trying to find him.”

“Interesting,” Forsung says again. “We shall hope he is brave enough to expose himself to Asgardian magic, wherever he may be. But if he is not, then we will have a great deal of difficulty tracking him. Frost Giants are masters of concealment and misdirection.”

“We should start by identifying his mystic essence,” Brona says cheerfully. “Jotun or not, if we can pick up his soul’s resonance it will make finding his physical form easier. And if he does choose to use his magic unscreened then we’ll have him with a minimum of fuss.”

“An incantation then?” Forsung says thoughtfully. “Using the Prince as the focus?”

“It’s risky,” Magnir puts in, still sounding sulky. “He has the magical sensitivity of a teakettle.”

“He has the blood of Odin and Frigga,” Brona points out while Thor struggles not to introduce Magnir to the magical sensitivity of Mjolnir’s head. “And he already has some sort of connection to this Loki. A soul-to-soul wide-spectrum search pattern would likely pick up the residual link between them.”

“Yes,” Forsung says, clapping his hands. “Groa’s Incantation will be perfect. Mjolnir will make an excellent tether. Brona, get the Divination Bowl. Magnir, get the runestones – no, no, the _clean_ ones, you should know that. Could you and your friends step outside for a few moments?” he says, suddenly switching his attention back to Thor. “We need to prepare the space.”

“Of course,” Thor says, utterly bewildered, and the five of them troop outside to stand awkwardly by the tentflap as the brothers’ rich voices begin singing in easy harmony.

“I mislike this magic,” Volstagg says after a moment, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

“You need not stay,” Thor says, a little more sharply than he intended. Volstagg gives him a wounded look.

“We only want to help,” Fandral says and they lapse into an uncomfortable silence, listening to the singing and occasional cursing coming from inside the tent.

Thor looks up at the sky. It is getting towards mid-morning; the sun is high and rising ever higher. Behind him, his shadow quivers as he moves, unable to settle. How can this be taking so long?

A small eternity later, the singing stops and Thor is called back in. His friends file in behind him without a word: even though they all look desperately uncomfortable, they will not leave him to face the unknown alone.

“Place Mjolnir in the centre of the circle and stand with the Divination Bowl in your hands,” says Forsung, now wearing a garish mask and vibrant robes, with an eerily pulsating talisman around his neck. Thor does so without hesitation, glancing at Brona and Magnir, who are wearing equally outlandish costumes with identical talismans.

There is a circle of egg-shaped stones on the floor of the tent, each stone engraved with a blackened rune, chalked lines and symbols linking them together in a complicated pattern that leaves a diamond-shaped space at the centre with a bowl resting in it. Thor carefully steps into the space and places Mjolnir on the ground, standing with his legs braced either side of her. The bowl now in his hands is large but plain, made of a single piece of ash, smooth and undecorated, filled with spring water.

“Hold the image of Loki in your mind,” Forsung says, “and look into the water.”

He and his brothers begin to hum under their breath, hands spread wide, faint mage-light flaring at their fingertips. Thor stares into the bowl and pictures Loki as he had seen him last, a hairs-breadth away, his beautiful crimson eyes bright with want and need, his lips parted and his fingers cool where they had gripped Thor’s. He remembers the strange pull he had felt, the ache for completion, and it is all too easy to fall into a daydream of closing the gap between them, of holding Loki close and kissing him, gently at first, and then more forcefully –

\- _THOR!_ –

The bowl explodes, water fountaining out, soaking Thor and cascading over Mjolnir, a piece of ash striking Thor in the forehead. The runestones vibrate madly, eldritch smoke pouring from their symbols, whirring across the space like spinning tops, crashing into each other and Thor’s feet before clattering to the floor. Thor looks up, astonished, to see that the Enchanter’s masks have also shattered, and all three brothers are gaping at him.

“Was that supposed to happen?” Sif asks from the back of the tent.

“You!” Magnir says, shaking off his shock and pointing an accusing finger at Thor. “Find a jotun sorcerer you said! An asylum-seeker, you said! You – you _idiot_!”

“Have a care how you speak,” Thor growls, wringing out his clothes.

“Soulmates,” Forsung says in awe, staring at Thor in wonder, apparently unconcerned by the fragments of broken bowl stuck in his hair . “Genuine soulmates. The hand of destiny. Do you have any idea what this means?”

Thor stares back at him. “Yes,” he manages, after a moment. Is that what just happened?

There’s a variety of choked noises behind him. “ _Soulmates_?” Fandral asks in disbelief, but Thor’s attention is fixed on Forsung.

“I have to find him,” he says softly. “I have to find him today.”

“Well, we may not have discovered where _he_ is,” Forsung says, grinning like a madman. “But he certainly knows where _you_ are! The feedback loop from the causal chain was so strong a noviate could track you with it!”

“So you can track him?” Thor says hopefully, but Forsung shakes his head.

“No, no, it’s too much, too overwhelming – we were looking for a rope, a chain, linking the two of you together but this – this is like a river, like a flood – our magic couldn’t possibly navigate it and you cannot use it because you are naturally non-magical, completely insensitive. You cannot even call your own thunder without Mjolnir!”

Thor bristles a little at the implied insult but it’s apparent from Forsung’s enthusiasm that he means no harm and in truth he is right. Thor has no magic at all and given that he had not even known he had a soulmate until yesterday, he is clearly lacking in whatever is drawing Loki to him. 

“The Enchantresses could use the bond to find him,” Magnir says, still sounding irritated. “Their magic is far more powerful than ours, and they are far more attuned to the weave of destiny. We work with conjurations and talismans. They wield elemental power.”

“But they are too far away,” Thor says. “I only have you to guide me.”

“Yes,” Brona says excitedly, coming forward to seize Thor’s hands. “Yes, of course. You should have _said_. You have a fixed destiny node imprinted on your fate thread! This is an unprecedented opportunity for study!”

Thor looks at them both blankly, but Brona is already turning away and chattering with Forsung, the pair of them gesturing wildly, arguing about Rites and Vectors and Fractal Connections.

Magnir is busy collecting the faintly smoking runestones, so Thor bends to help.

“You have seen them, haven’t you?” Magnir says, voice curiously flat. “The Sisters. The Well. The Tree.”

“Yes,” Thor answers, surprised. “What do you know of them?”

“More than I should,” Magnir says with a humourless smile. “You know there will be a price for all this. Magic cannot be bought or sold, and it is a gift that lessens both the giver and receiver.”

“Strange words for a man who has dedicated his life to its study,” Thor replies, studying Magnir’s carefully blank face. What secrets does this mage hold in his bitter heart?

“Wise words,” Magnir corrects, “and words you would do well to heed. I do not know what bargain you made, but you had best be certain this Loki is worth it.”

“It was no bargain,” Thor says. “I have been given a second chance. And I believe Loki is worth everything.”

“ _I_ believe you actually mean it,” Magnir says, but he sounds more rueful than scornful. “A Prince of Asgard with a jotun soulmate. It can only end in tears.”

“I mean for it to be otherwise,” Thor says, striving for calm as he piles the collected runestones in Magnir’s arms.

“We always do,” Magnir mutters and walks away, leaving Thor gazing thoughtfully after him.

***

Sif and the Warriors Three are not best pleased with Thor’s deception, but he has no time to explain, for the Enchanters have a new plan and it requires a variety of ingredients they do not have to hand. His friends’ black expressions promise much conversation on their return, but for now they must scatter to the winds, chasing down rare plants and odd trinkets from the nearby woods and farmsteads. Ringsfjord is not a prosperous region of Asgard, and so they have separated, to gather the items as quickly as possible.

Thor, on the other hand, must stay put. The Enchanters are convinced that Loki will be able to use the magical backlash from the failed Incantation to navigate towards Thor, and so the best thing for him to do is stay in the same place, at least until they have a better idea of where Loki will be coming from. Then, they assure him, he can go and meet Loki half-way. But for now, the best thing he can do is stay close to their tent and essentially function as a signal fire to light Loki’s way.

Thor is not enjoying being a signal fire. It is perhaps an hour to noon and the day is hot, but more importantly it is getting closer to half-over and he still has not found Loki. He itches to do something, to contribute in some active, meaningful way, but he cannot help the sorcerers with their research or finicky preparations and now he does not even have his friends to talk to as he waits.

With nothing else to do, his thoughts soon return to Loki. There is a hollow ache within him, a sickening sense of emptiness, as if every breath he takes is not enough to fill his lungs, every heartbeat sluggish and weak compared to the throb he had felt in Loki’s presence. He hungers for Loki in a way he had never imagined possible. How has Loki lived with this? He feels as if his skin is too tight, the world too small, a bone-deep sense of wrongness that has his mind buzzing and patience wearing thin. It is not the fear of dying again this day that drives him: it is the need for Loki, the want to be with him, to see him smile and laugh, to hold him close, not just today, but for the rest of time –

\- _Thor! I am coming! I will find you!_ -

A sudden stream of vicious cursing fills the air and the brothers stumble out of the tent, swearing and shouting, as a pool of viscous purple liquid oozes towards Thor’s feet, giving off plumes of magenta smoke and smelling strongly of prunes.

“What did you do?” Magnir shouts, his robes smoking slightly at the edges.

“ _Me_?” Thor says, giving Magnir a filthy look. He has being doing nothing. For what feels like hours.

“The cauldron exploded!” Borna seems to have borne the worst of the damage, at least as far as his clothing is concerned: his robe is full of scorch holes and spattered with strange waxy secretions that are glowing in a most off-putting way. “Magical backlash! Uncontrolled feedback!”

“I was just thinking,” Thor replies defensively, but Forsung and Brona are more excited than angry.

“About Loki?” Forsung says, closing in on Thor, his face barely inches away. “Were you touching your hammer?”

“What? No!”

“Interesting. Very interesting!” Forsung exclaims happily. “It’s the pressure of the fate node. It has to be! It’s creating shockwaves through reality!”

“Is that…bad?” Thor ventures. He has no wish to inadvertently trigger Ragnarok or any of the other dire events the Norns had spoken of.

“Yes!” Magnir snarls as Forsung and Brona chorus “No!”

“No,” Brona says firmly, shooting a glare at Magnir. “It just means you’re having an unpredictable effect on our spellwork. It may…slow us down somewhat.”

“But I’m sure it is helpful to your Loki,” Forsung chips in hastily as Thor’s expression clouds. “I suspect he is reaching out to you, and when you come into resonance with his thinking, it’s triggering the events. He must be a truly powerful sorcerer.”

“I cannot simply sit and wait like this,” Thor says, “and if what you say is true, then I am doing no good to your work by being here. I shall go and gather ingredients for your spells.”

“It might be better if you move beyond the immediate vicinity of our preparations,” Brona allows. “But we do not want you going too far. Don’t leave the camp – or, ah, it would be best, my lord, if you did not go too far from the gate,” he amends when he sees Thor’s expression.

“Very well,” Thor growls, and he removes himself from the Enchanters’ presence before he does something rash. Everything is moving too _slowly_ and his whole body is prickling with irritation and a profound sense of loss.

The soldiers on the wall are happy to see him alive and well, but equally happy to give him some space as he stares moodily out at the ragged wasteland that marks the borders of Asgard and Jotunheim; the Outyards are a fluid, changeable space where the two Realms meet and overlap, and passage between them is possible, for an individual or for entire armies. That is why the wall and the gate is here, in Ringsfjord, and why it has become the focus of the endless war between the Frost Giants and the Asgardians. Heimdall alone is sufficient guard for the Bifrost, with its fixed point of entry to the city; here, with miles and miles of rough, unstable country to guard, at least half of Asgard’s army is required to man the defences and keep watch for the next incursion.

There will be no battle today. The Outyards shimmer with heat, a dry and blasted desert stretching out the horizon, entirely clear of the tell-tale mists and blasts of wintery air that leak through Jotunheim’s portals once opened and inevitably precede a Frost Giant attack. There are a few standing portals, out at the base of the rocky cliffs to the east of the gate, and these perpetually ooze a chilling fog and small flurries of snow that melt the instant they reach Asgard’s warmer air; however, the soldiers are well used to staring at them and can tell the moment the fog thickens enough to cover a jotun invasion.

Thor watches the fog tendrils swirl around the base of the cliffs and wonders if Loki has ever tried to come through such a portal, or whether he has other, more secretive routes between worlds. To his knowledge, no-one has ever come through this particular breach, the jotun generally preferring to advance in huge numbers through the wide, open portal immediately in front of the gate, which is of course why the gate was built there. The small portal would only really be of use to a spy or an assassin…or a lone soulmate, he thinks suddenly, grinning to himself.

If he enters Jotunheim – only for a moment, and quite alone, just popping in and popping back out – Loki would surely sense it, if he was there, and would be able to find his way to the portal and so reach Thor that much quicker. Damn the sorcerers and their slow, careful spells: this is action and adventure and in his own hands, all of which is much more this taste. At the worst, Loki is not there, and for a few moments Thor’s signal, or resonance, or whatever he should call the mystical strangeness that connects them, would flicker and change; but he’ll come right back, and there will be no harm done.

Plus, Thor has never been to Jotunheim, and has always longed to see the savage icelands of his enemy for himself.

Decision made, Thor does not hesitate. It is practically noon, and time is slipping away. He takes Mjolnir from his belt and leaps from the wall, ignoring the shouts and dismayed cries of the warriors behind him, and soars straight for the eastern cliffs, aiming for the greasy flickering that marks the tiny portal.

 _Loki. I am coming_.

Thor is going to Jotunheim, and nothing can stop him now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so back in August this was definintely, absolutely a one-shot; then in September I decided it was actually a 4 part fic and wrote the very end. It's taken me since then to do the second part...so, fair warning, part 3 may be a while in coming. But I do have the ending ready and waiting!! *nervous laughter* [The Enchanters Three](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enchanters_Three) are Marvel villains from the older Thor runs and their costumes are truly hilarious.


	3. Chapter 3

Thor arrives in Jotunheim with Mjolnir held high, teeth bared and braced for battle; it is something of an anti-climax, then, that the only witnesses to his daring excursion are some unimpressed looking yak, who continue their placid cud-chewing despite Thor’s dramatic entrance. They’re as oversized as the jotun Thor is used to, but far more ponderous, and it takes a small but targeted sizzle of lightning from Mjolnir to persuade them to shuffle off, casting supercilious glances at Thor as they go.

The borderlands of Jotunheim are not like the Outyards. There is no wall, no defined encampment or watchful sentries – there is no-one here at all. All around him, the snow-covered wilderness is a swath of broken ground and boulders hemmed in by dark mountains,  the visibility hampered even further by the constantly swirling mists, not quite a snowstorm, but dull and dreary and cold. Thor shudders. _Very_ cold.

Well, he came here for a reason, so he had better make the most of the stillness and silence. Thor closes his eyes and tries to remember what he was thinking of when he heard Loki’s voice in his mind earlier. He had been thinking on the aching loneliness that has burrowed its way beneath his skin; the constant gnawing frustration and sense of wrongness that has settled into a faint headache at the base of his skull; the warm crimson of Loki’s eyes and the texture of his skin – in fact, if he tries, he can summon up the memory of Loki’s hand beneath his lips, the pressure of his fingers as he tightened his grip, the way his lips parted as he looked at Thor.

 _Loki_? He thinks hopefully, holding the image of him in his mind. _Loki, can you hear me? I am in Jotunheim! I will find you!_

He holds his breath and concentrates, fills his mind with Loki, and he thinks, he thinks maybe he feels something, a strange static buzzing, a tidal-wave of pressure behind his eyes, a sensation of falling and flying, all at the same time –

“Asgardian!” roars a voice far too close for comfort and Thor’s eyes snap open, Mjolnir coming up in a defensive position without him having to think about it as he scans the snowy landscape. Nothing – nothing – wait – there! Between the jagged spires are three tall figures, clustered together and heading towards him, ice-blades glinting in the faint light.

Thor grins. It would have been a waste indeed if he had come all the way to Jotunheim and not found at least one fight.

“What are you doing here?” snarls the ringleader as the giants close, the other two taking up flanking positions, chunky frozen blades levelled at Thor.

“Looking for someone,” Thor replies with a cocky grin.

The giants exchange glances and Thor sizes them up. The ringleader is the tallest, with a spiky ice helmet growing from the usual jotun skullcap; a mark of rank, Thor guesses, for he seems older and more confident than the other two. The one on his left is broad and strong, but his eyes flick nervously from Thor to the helmeted jotun, and he seems fresh faced and unscarred – at least, compared to the other two. A new recruit, then. The one on his right is the shortest, though still far taller than Thor, and scowls at him with open aggression. He has some nasty scarring, which suggests he’s been in battle before, but he’s so busy glaring at Thor he’s letting the point of his blade drop. Not a veteran, like the leader; just an overconfident youngster who has mistaken a few doomed charges for true experience.

A pitiful crew, to be honest, for Thor the giant-slayer. But such slim pickings will have to do.

“I am Thor, of Asgard,” he announces proudly. “And I have come to -”

“Wait,” the smallest jotun says suddenly. “This is a trap.”

Thor and the other two look at him in astonishment. “A trap?” says the leader. “What do you mean, a trap?”

“Of course it’s a trap!” the smallest one says scornfully. “What Aesir would be stupid enough to venture in to Jotunheim alone?”

“Well, yes, but Thor -”

“He _says_ he’s Thor but I bet he’s not. Would the Crown Prince of Asgard be bumbling around the arse-end of nowhere on his own? He’d have an army! There’d be a battle!”

“I am -” Thor starts, but the conversation just carries on right over his head.

“Hey, you’re right,” pipes up the new recruit. “So what, you think this one’s a spy?”

“Probably, and now we’ve caught him, he’s pretending to be Thor, so that we’ll take him to Laufey-King and he can learn more of our secrets.”

“No, no,” the leader chimes in, shaking his head. “I bet he’s a diversion, to keep us here, distracted, while the rest of them sneak in somewhere else.”

“Ooh,” the other two chorus, impressed by this display of tactical thinking.

“I am not a spy and I am not a diversion,” Thor growls, tightening his grip on Mjolnir; “I am Thor Odinson, Prince of Asgard, and -”

“Oh, give over,” the new recruit says scornfully. “We’re not falling for it.”

“Yeah,” jeers the smallest one. “Besides, you’re too puny to be the _real_ Thor.”

Thor’s lips peel back in a feral grin and he raises Mjolnir high.

After the blinding light and earth-shattering roar of the lightning strike has died away, the distinctly singed jotun blink at him in wordless shock.

“Now,” Thor says, with a veneer of calm, “As I said, I am looking for someone. A jotun sorcerer named Loki. Do any of you know where I might find him?”

“Why -” starts the smallest jotun, who is obviously not as quick a thinker as he fancies himself to be, but his older companion gives him a resounding smack to the back of his head, which shuts him up sharpish.

“There are quite a few sorcerers named Loki, my, uh, lord prince,” the leader says, falling over himself in an effort to be polite. His ice helmet and all their weapons have melted away entirely under the force of the lightning. “It was a popular name a while back. There’s, um, Loki of Utgard, Loki who is also called Loptr, Loki called Silvertongue, Loki called Skywalker, Loki who, um, had that thing with the horse that one time -”

“He is my height,” Thor interrupts, “and has long dark hair.” Surely there cannot be many of such stature in the kingdom of giants?

“Oh, _that_ Loki,” the new recruit says, anxious to be helpful. “He’s Laufey’s son. The king’s bastard.”

“ _Laufeyson_?” Thor chokes out. Oh, his father will _not_ be pleased when he brings Loki home. But he will trouble himself with that later. “Where might I find him?”

“Not here,” the smallest jotun says with a somewhat suicidal streak of sullenness. “He left Jotunheim months ago.”

“Where did he go?” Thor asks, disappointment settling in the pit of his stomach. So much for this bright idea.

“Nidavellir,” the leader says and risks a small smile. “I can, er, show you the way, your lordship – highness – Prince Thor?”

“Just Prince is fine,” Thor says absently. Since Loki is not in Jotunheim, he ought to go straight back to Ringsfjord, where he can continue being a signal fire, lighting the way for Loki to come to him. This was only supposed to a flying visit, on the off chance Loki might be here and could find his way to the portal closest to Thor. But he hates the very idea of simply sitting and waiting, especially now that he has a lead, however old the trail. He has been in Jotunheim but a few moments; surely an equally swift excursion to the dwarves’ realm could do no harm – and might win him another clue, some trace of Loki’s current location that could guide the Enchanter’s in their work to help Thor find him?

But there is one problem still. “I know Nidavellir well,” Thor muses aloud. “But it is many days travel from the Outyards.”

“On the rainbow roads, sure. But Loki Laufeyson is a sorcerer. He travels by other paths.”

“You know these paths?”

“Not well, Prince Thor. I’m no sorcerer myself. But we know certain, ah, shortcuts – this is the thin edge of Jotunheim’s borders, and there are many portals and few guards. Not many _want_ to come to Jotunheim, but many here are grateful for a chance to venture out.”

“Are these shortcuts to taverns, by any chance?” Thor asks wryly, for he has spent much time around the borders of Asgard, and knows what guards look for when their duty shift is over.

“Could be, could be,” the leader says, scratching his chin. “But there’s also one near here to a marketplace in the dwarves’ city. Supplies are pretty thin on the ground these days. Some folk are getting desperate. Me and the lads here, we try and help out when we can.”

“That’s very…kind,” Thor says, a bit puzzled. The armies that batter the walls of the Outyards seem strong and well fed. Is the situation in Jotunheim so dire that their less fortunate are scrounging for food in other realms?

The leader shrugs. “You look after your own,” he says. “It’s been a long war. We’re all a bit tired, these days. Anyway, I don’t know where your Loki is now. But three, four months back, he went through the marketplace portal as I came out. You might have better luck tracking him there – I’m sure they’d remember a jotun who looked like him. He’s something special.”

“He is, isn’t he?” Thor says warmly, and then he remembers he is talking to enemy soldiers who have just revealed they have secret ways of moving between the realms. He’ll have to report this when he gets back.

“I’ll take you to the portal,” the leader says, considerably more relaxed now. This is the longest conversation Thor has ever had with a Frost Giant and it’s amazing how- how normal it seems. Soldiers are soldiers, and Thor has been around them all his life. “It’s not too far on foot.”

“If you give me directions, I will be faster flying,” Thor says and the jotun nods.

“Right, well, this is us,” he says, crouching down to draw a curious spiral in the snow. “And this is that rock pillar, over there, the one that looks like a bit like a -”

“Yes, I see it,” Thor answers, squinting through the snow. It is a rather _interesting_ pillar.

“So you go past that, and then -”

The map sketched out in the snow is crude, but there seem to be no end of interestingly-shaped bits of scenery in the vicinity, carved by the bitter wind and constant thawing and freezing of the ice, and Thor carefully commits the route drawn for him to memory before hefting his hammer. The jotun shuffle back discreetly.

“I thank you for your aid,” Thor says sincerely.

“No problem,” the leader says, eyeing Mjolnir nervously. “Our pleasure, Prince Thor. I hope you find Loki Laufeyson soon.”

“I will,” Thor vows and begins to whip his hammer; as he takes to the air, the last thing he hears is the not-so-muttered comment from the smallest jotun: “I wouldn’t want to be him when the Aesir catches up to him, whatever he wants,” and the fervent sounds of agreement from the other two.

Thor makes his way through the freezing fog and desolate landscape of Jotunheim easily enough, navigating from pillar to pillar without too much of a problem. There doesn’t seem to be a soul about, and he wonders if, like the Outyards, this is a stretch of underpopulated territory, manned purely because of the flickering gateways between the realms. The sentries he has just spoken to are clearly not part of the main army that appears periodically at Ringsfjord’s main gate; that means there must be an encampment somewhere nearby, where he could learn much about Jotunheim’s forces _and_ get to smash a few Frost Giants while he was at it.

Oddly, the thought doesn’t fill him with the glee it usually does. For Asgard, the war is something that only happens on the frontiers, far from the city and the civilians, and bar the occasional celebration after a particularly grand battle, most get on with their lives without ever thinking about it, much less suffering in any way because of it. No Asgardian has died in battle for something like four or five years, and no sentry needs to sneak into other realms to find food for the people he protects. It seems that the things are far more different in Jotunheim than he had ever imagined.

It is something to ask Loki about, at any rate. Laufey’s bastard! Of all the people to have as his soulmate…

Well, Loki is all that matters today, he decides as he catches sight of a patch of greasy air near a rock that could charitably described as protruding in a rather anatomical way. The swirling fog is being sucked into it, and as Thor gets closer, he can feel the warm air leaking from the portal, causing the fog to coalesce into a fine misty rain as he lands and tries to peer through. Politics and power and peculiar thoughts about Frost Giants can all wait. He must find Loki, and swiftly. The day is already more than half done.

***

As promised, the portal brings him out into a marketplace: what the jotuns failed to mention was that it is a marketplace in the grimiest, filthiest and generally roughest part of Nidavellir that Thor has ever seen. Granted, his visits have usually been to the palace, and he has seen the city mostly while in the company of the Queen and her court, but still. This is _not_ a good neighbourhood.

Then again, Thor thinks as he moves through the stalls, feeling unfriendly gazes skittering over his armour and glancing off his hammer and bunched arm muscles, the districts Thor is used to would have screamed for the City Watch the moment they saw a jotun. This is just the kind of place a small, secretive jotun sorcerer might pass through relatively unmolested – but how is he to find out?

He has no idea.

Never mind, he thinks, pushing away his brief moment of uncertainty. Loki was here a few months ago and perhaps he is still here and even now making his way towards him. It is the best lead he has had so far, so he will stay for a little time – just a little – before returning to Asgard via these handy security-breaching portals, and either he will leave a trail for Loki to follow or he will get home to find the Enchanters have finished their spellwork.

Mind made up, Thor looks around with some purpose, and grins when he spots a crudely painted sign swinging over a low door. Either way, it cannot hurt to have a quick drink and a quicker enquiry as to whether anyone here does remember a startlingly beautiful jotun sorcerer with raven-black hair and eyes like rubies. There really is no other way to describe him, after all.

It is a bit of a squeeze for Thor to get into the tavern, what with being two foot taller than most here, and probably that much wider, too, but he is an expert in getting in to drinking establishments and finds himself a place at the bar without too much difficulty.

“Strange to see yer kind round ‘ere,” the barkeep says bluntly as Thor catches her eye. “This ain’t no place for an Asgardian.”

“I will be the judge of that,” Thor says amicably, producing a silver coin. The barkeep’s scowl smoothes to a welcoming smile.

“As you say, as you say. What’ll it be?”

“Your finest ale,” Thor say, and decides to hold his tongue when the drink placed before him falls far short of any definition of ‘finest’ he’s ever had to put up with.

“You in the Shambles fer business or pleasure?” the barkeep asks, oozing friendly avarice as she polishes a glass.

“I am looking for news of Loki Laufeyson, a jotun sorcerer,” Thor announces and the entire room goes silent.

“Who wants to know?” calls a voice from the back; Thor turns, but while every eye in the place is fixed on him, no-one seems willing to advertise themselves as the owner of the voice.

“I am Thor of Asgard,” he answers, swinging Mjolnir up to balance her on his shoulder, and feels every gaze switch from his face to her flat head. No dwarf would question his identity with her in his grip. “I was given word he passed through here not long ago. I mean him no harm, but I must find him this day.”

The assembled dwarves stare at him a moment longer, and then break into huddled groups, whispering frantically. There’s a lot of movement between groups as each one reaches a consensus and drifts apart to confer with the others; soon, there is a steady trickle of dwarves sidling past Thor and out the door, radiating that special kind of innocence that proclaims: me guv? I don’t know nothing, I wasn’t even there, guv.

He lets them go. Starting a fight will not help right now, though he reserves the right to change his mind on that avenue of negotiation.

Within minutes, the bar is emptied save for him, the bartender and half a dozen dwarves bunched up like a ball of sardines, slowly rotating as each elbows the dwarf next to her, until a particularly brave individual shuffles half a step forward and glowers at Thor from beneath wonderfully bushy black brows.

“Ere, what you want with ‘im, anyway?” Eyebrows demands belligerently. Thor looks down at her – not difficult – and slowly, deliberately, puts Mjolnir down beside him.

“He is my soulmate,” Thor says clearly in what might be considered a less than conciliatory tone; demurring had not worked with his friends, and he has no concern for the scorn of his enemies. Their scorn never lasts long.

But scorn is not the response he receives. “Soulmate?” a freckled dwarf to the right says wistfully, eyeing Thor with undisguised envy. “Lucky bastard.”

“A King’s bastard and a King’s heir,” someone sighs dreamily. “Fathers who’ve bin fightin’ fer a thousand years, and then their sons fall in love. Like a fairytale, innit.”

“Wish I could find me soulmate,” another sighs. “No bugger else will put up wi’ me.”

“You ain’t got one,” a fifth dwarf says rudely. She’s a large dwarf with a shaved head and more tattoos than facial hair, and an expression that says rudeness of speech is better than the alternative she will all too happily provide. “Only rich buggers and poncy twats ‘ave ‘em – excepting yer prescence, milord,” she adds quickly as Thor clears his throat. “Hand of destiny, for yer lot. Sons of Kings ‘ave soulmates and skeins of fate and all that. It ain’t for the likes of us.”

The others nod in solemn agreement. Thor just stares. “Yer can’t fight this kind of thing,” a gloomy-looking dreadlocked dwarf at the back proclaims. “It’s a, whatchamacallit, Noble Quest for a Fated Encounter.”

“Fateful,” puts in the romantic.

The dreadlocked dwarf waves a hand lazily. “Fated, fateful, whatever. Me point is, we try and stand in the way, like, we’re gonners. That’s how it works. We tie ‘im up and toss ‘im in a cellar, ‘e’s sure to find his way out wi’ some helpful mice or summat, and wreak bloody vengeance on us for sending ‘im astray.”

“I doubt I would require the assistance of mice to loose myself from bondage,” Thor says, frowning, and the group murmurs agreement. Dreadlocks stamps her foot in annoyance.

“Oi, pillocks, you ain’t _listening_ ,” she says angrily. “I’m _saying_ we can’t stop ‘im, so we ‘ave to ‘elp him. Narrative causality and all that. There’s rules about this sorta thing.”

There’s a heavy silence as the assembled dwarves think about this. “Yeah, that sounds about right,” comes a slow reply from Thor’s far left, from a heaveyset dwarf who has so far been pretty quiet. “Plucky Folk Help Hero, right? Give ‘im three magical gifts, send ‘im on ‘is way wi’ a vaguely unhelpful warning that’ll come clear in Act Four, right?”

“What?” Thor asks, feeling as if he has strayed into some strange realm where people speak in a variety of different tongues instead of the universal Allspeak, but all around him the dwarves are shaking their heads ruefully and slapping their thighs.

“We be a right bunch of idjits.”

“Of course, of course, it’s so bleedin’ obvious -”

“Well, when ‘e puts it like that, course it is -”

“Do it matter we ain’t got three magical gifts?”

“Naw, it’s the Convenient Assistance that matters, see; we give ‘im info, it’s a good as a glass slipper to a sootsweeper.”

“Right,” announces Eyebrows, apparently the de facto leader of this merry band. Her teeth flash white amid the corkscrew curls of her beard as she grins broadly at Thor. “We ain’t got no clue where Loki Laufeyson is, mate, but what we ‘ave got is a Compact Preternatural Assistance and Service device, and since you two be soulmates, it won’t take much to jerry-rig it for tracking yer blue boyfriend.”

“A what?” Thor says, still all at sea, but hanging on to the life raft of friendliness now emanating from the group. He’ll take all the help he can get.

“We call it a ComPAS for short,” Dreadlocks says helpfully.

“A magic compass?” Thor says, striking out for sanity in this conversation. “An excellent tool!”

“Yeah, it is,” Eyebrows says. “Cutting edge tech, this. Very difficult to work with. _Very_ pricey.”

Thor gives her a flat look. He doesn’t doubt her word, but he given their current location, he very much doubts she paid full price – if any price – for this magical device. “You may apply to Asgard for compensation,” he says, letting his fingers rest on the top of Mjolnir’s handle. “Present your petition to my father and he will recompense you for your trouble in aiding me.”

Eyebrows doesn’t so much as blink, but Dreadlocks shuffles her feet and looks abashed. The barkeep laughs. “You ain’t so dumb as you look, Princey,” she chortles, impervious to the glares of both Thor and his new companions. “But this is my bar and I believes in fair play. Give the lasses summat before yer take their stuff. Don’t wanna cross fate, do yer?”

No, he does not. And he does not have time for any more arguments; this quick drink is turning into something else entirely. “You have my word I will repay you in full,” he says with a sigh. “But as I have but little of value with me now, will a drink apiece serve as a token of my good will?”

A chorus of ragged cheers indicates yes, and he pulls out his small bag of coins. It is more than worth it to have a magic compass that will help him track Loki; if he cannot find him in the next hour or so, he can at least take it back to the Enchanters, who will no doubt be delighted with it, for dwarven talismans are universally acclaimed the most sophisticated in all the realms.

“Yer all right, Prince of Asgard,” Eyebrows tells him, slinging a friendly arm around Thor’s waist as Dreadlocks, Freckle and the Romantic huddle around something small and metallic, and the air fills with the sounds of hammering, tinkering and drinks pouring. “You ever need anything, me and the girls’ll sort yer out.”

“I am grateful for your aid,” Thor says over the swearing coming from the huddle of engineers, and Eyebrows squeezes him in a slightly worrying way.

“Shame yer spoken for,” she says with a wink, but she’s moving away before Thor can respond, shouting  for a bleedin’ resonance fork, whatever one of them might be. Thor watches the sway of her hips for a second and then shrugs.

“Six more ales for my…friends,” he says to the smirking barkeep, “and one for yourself.”

“Sure thing, darlin’,” she says, and Thor sits himself down on the too-low stool, folding his legs awkwardly beneath him as he finally picks up his drink. The dwarves have never been great friends to Asgard, but here, in this grimy tavern, he has found more willing help than any offered yet. It seems that dwarves, like the jotun, put greater stock in soulmates and stories than his fellow Asgardians, and he wonders what else they value that he knows nothing of. Who knew there was so much still to learn?

***

It’s hard to tell in the gloom of the tavern, but he’s fairly sure it’s an hour before the sweating dwarves finally straighten up from the little device they are working on to beckon him over. It’s been an interesting interlude, listening to the barkeep’s stories and finding out just how dedicated to fate and narrative dwarven culture is, but he’s been here too long, far too long, and he is thrumming with anxiety and restlessness as they demonstrate the ComPAS to him, explaining at length the thaumatological intricacies and their innovative rewiring and modding.

“ _What_ do I do with it?” Thor asks and Eyebrows eyeballs him.

“Open the cover,” she says patiently; “breathe on it, speak three true names, and look for where it guides yer.”

“Three of my names?” Thor asks, for this he has heard of before, at least. Magical contracts are full of these kind of details. “Or three of his?”

“Don’t matter,” Freckles says. “The resonance of yer soulbound outstrips the processin’ power of this thing. Yer just need to give it the command string it’s used to to get it ticking over, then yer fate node’ll override the script and kickstart a spectrum search independent of the original programmin’.”

Thor rubs a hand over his face. He’s familiar with Asgardian technology and he’s fairly good at picking up on new gadgets from the other realms, since Odin has always been keen on getting his hands on the latest weapons and devices across the universe, but all this technical language is going straight over his head.

 “Look,” Dreadlocks says, squeezing his arm reassuringly – or having a good grope, Thor’s not totally sure at this point. He’d ended up buying quite a few more drinks for the girls as they worked. “Just go for it. Test run an’ we’ll fix on fail.”

That makes sense. Thor picks up the device, which is a surprisingly heavy glossy black oblong. He flicks open the case and lifts it to his mouth so he can breathe across the intricate gears and cogs inside. “I, Thor, son of Odin and Prince of Asgard, need to find Loki, son of Laufey, sorcerer of Jotunheim,” he says clearly.

“Overkill,” mutters Eyebrows, but Thor isn’t listening, for the palm-sized shallow box is chiming like a bell, its moving parts gliding seamlessly and silently and yet causing the case to shudder and sing out in a strange harmonic. He feels it vibrating through his bones, making his teeth chatter, and it’s like it’s drilling a hole in his head, causing his dull tension headache to flare to multi-colour life, bright lights dancing before his eyes –

\- _Thor?!_ –

And then the thing goes silent and his vision clears.

“I heard him,” he says, grinning wildly. “It works!”

But Eyebrows and Dreadlocks and Freckles are bent over his hand, staring at the crystal disc at the ComPAS’s heart. “Ah, shit,” Eyebrows says morosely.

Thor looks carefully at the crystal and his heart sinks, for reflected in its polished surface is a lush rainforest, the glossy, rain-soaked foliage thick and impenetrable, with a sluggish, wide river snaking through its depths.

“’E’s in Vanaheim,” Dreadlocks says, offering Thor another squeeze-cum-grope. “Sorry, mate.”

Vanaheim is a week away, by the paths Thor knows; there are no doubt others, but only a sorcerer would be able to travel them, for Vanaheim is a realm lousy with magic, and guards its borders jealously. Their lands may belong to Asgard now, and many of their people have come to live in the golden city, but those who have stayed in the forest are said to be witches and wizards and to practice all kinds of dark and forbidden magics.

Thor can see why Loki would go there, for Vanaheim is the best place for a sorcerer to find magical aid. But he cannot follow him, not without the Enchanters’ help, and his sense of disappointment is crushing. He had been hoping Loki was still somewhere in Nidavellir, and that he might be able to simply fly there and have him in his arms with a minimum of fuss.

“My quest is ended, for now,” he says, doing his best to ignore the dwarves’ pitying looks. “I shall return to Ringsfjord and wait for Loki to come to me by his own secret ways.”

“Er,” says one of the quieter dwarves behind him, glancing down when he turns to look at her. “If ‘e’s in Vanaheim – no, I gotta say it,” she says sharply as Eyebrows gives her a vulgar hand gesture; “If ‘e’s in Vanaheim, ‘e might not be comin’ to yer.”

“He is,” Thor says confidently. His love and faith are unshakeable.

“Um, I mean, I hope so, yeah, but e’s a sorcerer, right? If ‘e’s in Vanaheim, it’s like, five minutes to nip up to Asgard, find you and on wi’ the snogging.”

Thor blinks. “You are mistaken,” he says. “Vanaheim is a good distance away, even by the Bifrost. No matter how skilled a sorcerer he may be, it will take him time to find a path and get to Asgard – and to get from the city to Ringsfjord, where I have been.” Where I should be now, he thinks guiltily; he has gained little from this jaunting about, and what if he has confused Loki and caused him to turn from getting to Asgard to Nidavellir?

“Nah, nah, you don’t get it. A sorcerer alone is limited, sure, but a bunch of ‘em? A jotun and a load of Vanir witches? They’d ‘ave ‘im anywhere in the realms soon as you could spit. They’ve got all kinds of powers when you get ‘em together. _Real_ powers.”

This is true; this is why Asgard’s most powerful women have gathered together, for in unison, his mother, Amora, Lorelei and Karnilla can do far more than any one can do alone. But there must be a reason why Loki is still in Vanaheim and not Ringsfjord. There must be, and all Thor can do is get back to the Enchanters and see what they have managed to accomplish in his absence.

“I must go,” Thor says abruptly. “I am grateful, friends, truly. But I should not have come. I must return to my place and wait, however little I like it.”

“Listen,” the quiet dwarf says urgently, slapping her friends away. “I know you love ‘im, but mate, sorcerers – if ‘e’s in Vanaheim, ‘e could be up to _anything_.”

“We are soulmates,” Thor says, temper flaring. “Besides which, we will die if we are not reunited this day. He is coming for me. I know it.”

Silence meets this and a good deal of shifty glances. “Thor,” Eyebrows says, with a gentleness Thor had not suspected she possessed, “the sorcerers of Vanaheim, in great enough numbers, with a jotun sorcerer as powerful as yer say Loki is – they can change fate. Swap souls. ‘E might – ‘e might be tryin’ to -”

“He is not,” Thor growls and the dwarves shrink away from his expression. “Fare thee well. You will have your payment in a few days – you have my word on it. But do not look for my coming here again.”

He does not wait to hear the dwarves’ dismayed clamouring, but he does keep a tight hold on the compass as he storms out and breaks into a run, heading back for the portal. It might be useful still, he tells himself, but even though he keeps it clutched tightly in his palm, he does not open the case, nor speak Loki’s name to it. In fact, he tries not to think of Loki at all as he plunges from Nidavellir to Jotunheim, and from there soars back towards his first entry point, keeping his mind as blank and empty as the rushing wind around him.

He has but a few hours left. There is no time for doubt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I took a break from writing about Jotunheim and Nidavellir in Fortune's Ice...to write about Jotunheim and Nidavellir here instead. Ah, well. This has ended up being a very different story to the one I thought it was, but Thor doesn't get enough of his own adventure stories in fandom, so here we go. Hope it's not too much of a deviation for you :)


	4. Chapter 4

Thor hurtles through the portal and instantly checks as hot ash and smoke billow into his face, leaving him choking on soot. He looks around in him in dismay, taking in the leaping flames, greasy plumes of coal-black smoke, the scorch marks on the white walls of Asgard’s borders, and the overpowering stench of sulphur and brimstone.

“Thor!” Sif billows, waving frantically at him, her shield painted in lurid hues where it reflects the crackling fire. “Thor, where have you _been_?”

“What has happened?” Thor shouts, coming to land at her side. She is streaked with soot and her vambraces and sword tip look distinctly charred; as ever then, she has been in the thick of the fighting.

“Fire demons caught us off guard,” she says, gesturing for him to come with her. “The sentries were watching the Jotunheim portals, looking for you or another attack – and then, out of nowhere, dozens of demons appeared and charged the gate. This outpost’s defences are meant for frost and ice, not fire – it’s gone hard, but we’ve driven them back for now.”

“How far back?” Thor says, eyeing the ruins of the gate as they pass, anger churning within him. He should have been here!

“Not far enough,” Sif says with a mirthless smile. “They’ve holed up in the cliffs. They can’t cross to Jotunheim, but the Outyards are perfect for them. They’ll nest up there for months if we let them.”

That is not an option. It’s been a long time since Muspelheim threatened Asgard: Odin imprisoned their leader before Thor was born, ending most of the trouble, but there have been sporadic raids from the Fire Realm on and off for centuries. The demons do not eat or drink, do not want wealth or land or the obedience of the people; the only reason they come here is to pit themselves against the Asgardians. Destruction, terror and glory to their names seems to be their only motivation, for their cries of vengeance for Surtur are half-hearted at best.

Thor can understand it, a little, for he too has crossed into Muspelheim with no greater purpose than proving himself against a worthy foe, but it is too dangerous to let a party of demons establish themselves here, where they are continually distracted by their battles with the Frost Giants. The demons and giants are occasional allies, despite their opposing natures, and even alone, the demons are fast and strong and all the more so here. They will draw strength from the oppressive heat of the Outyards and all the magical wards here strengthen the wood and stone against intense cold, leaving them even more vulnerable to the demon’s fire.

“Word has spread that you fell yesterday,” Sif says, shading her eyes as she looks out at the shimmering  desert cliffs. “But not that you rose today. They must have thought it a chance to hit us while we were weakened.”

Thor says nothing, her words buzzing like hornets in his mind. He had not thought – but, of course, he is Asgard’s champion, her favourite son. The story of his death must have spread like wildfire overnight, and Asgard’s enemies are likely gathering even now to exploit the sudden gap in her defences. And though he lives again for this one, short day, he has failed in his duty to bridge that gap, for he has been so busy chasing Loki’s shadow he has left Ringsfjord and his people undefended.

“We must drive the demons out,” he says at last. “Prove that we are as strong as ever, and send them scurrying back to Muspelheim licking their wounds. Jotunheim seems quiet enough, and the demons have not yet had the time to prepare a trap between the portals and the cliffs. We must attack, and quickly.”

“A counter-attack?” Sif says, flashing him a grin. “Hot work today. And what of your Loki?”

Thor smiles back, a little forced. It is mid-afternoon already. “I must stay put,” he says, “so the Enchanters can finish their work and he can find me. I might as well keep myself busy while I wait.”

“That’s the most sensible thing you’ve said today,” Sif says, slapping him on the back. “I’ll rally the soldiers. We’ve a few out of action, but most are ready and raring to go.”

“I will meet you at the gate shortly,” Thor says, and sets off at a fast pace, thoughts whirling.

Thor has never been fearful in a fight, for a glorious victory or a glorious death are the only possible outcomes, and he welcomes either with joy. But now, for the first time, unease brushes over him. What will happen if he fails? If he dies, again, however gloriously?

Thor shivers despite the sweltering heat. He has thought only of losing Loki, of the vague threats of the Norns that without he and Loki coming together, some dire fate will overtake the universe. But what of the more immediate threat? If he dies now, Sif and the soldiers here will face an onslaught, not only from the Frost Giants, but from the demons gathering in the rocks, from the Marauders he is constantly chasing from world to world, from Rock Trolls and fell beasts and ogres and all manner of lawless creatures who have been curbed these last centuries by the strength of his hand and hammer. And without their Prince and Heir, perhaps even the friendlier Realms will grow restless, will see the spectre of extinction in the House of Odin and look to loot the Realm Eternal before it falls.

It must not be. He must find Loki and he must live, for himself, for Loki and for Asgard. But even so, he cannot skulk in the Enchanter’s tent and leave his warriors to fight the demons without him. If only he had not gone to Jotunheim and Nidavellir...but there is no use in berating himself. He must use the time he has left as best he can, and make the most of what he has gleaned outside Ringsfjord.

Thor curses, fluently and at some length, and hurries on.

***

“Where have you _been_?” Magnir shouts as Thor ducks beneath the tent flap. “Do you have any _idea_ what you’ve done to our spellcraft?”

“Hold your tongue,” Thor snarls, temper frayed well beyond the point of putting up with such a tone. “I have journeyed through Jotunheim and Nidavellir, and return with a dwarven compass I trust you will put to good use.”

“We, ah, we have the ingredients!” Brona chips in, clearly nervous of Thor’s temper. “Your friends have done a wonderful job, and, er, we have made some progress – great progress, yes, great progress in setting up a Vector Alignment to narrow down the sorcerer’s location -”

“He’s in Vanaheim,” Thor says flatly, handing over the compass. “This is attuned to our connection.”

“Vanaheim?” Magnir says as Brona turns the compass over his hands, exclaiming over the workmanship. “But – why -”

“I do not know,” Thor says curtly. “I am running out of time. I must lead our forces against the Fire demons now – you must use this to reach Loki, to help him come here, for I cannot get to Vanaheim in time.”

Brona makes an extremely unpleasant sucking noise with his teeth. “We’ll try, my Prince, and this will be most helpful, I am sure, but -”

“Help him get here,” Thor orders. He will brook no more nonsense.

“That is not quite the issue,” Forsung says, and Thor turns: the eldest brother has been lurking in the shadows, stirring something gloopy and foul-looking in a cauldron. He dips a finger in the puce-coloured slime and then licks it thoughtfully. “More sugar,” he says to himself, and then focuses more sharply on Thor.

“A dwarven ComPASS, and hot off the forge,” Forsung says as he comes round to Brona’s side, petting the black oblong fondly. “How wonderful. We’ll have to strip it down, of course, but look, it’s been taken apart once already – is this soldering? Where did you get this?”

“In a tavern,” Thor says, and irritably waves away the flurry of pointless questions. “What is the issue, then?”

“Hmm?” Forsung says, prodding the compass with barely disguised glee. “Oh, yes. Your sorcerer is in Vanaheim, you said?”

“Yes.”

“Then he cannot need our help,” Forsung mutters, distracted by his new toy. “He’s more powerful than us – than Amora and Lorelei even, if the Fractals are anything to go by. He must be with the jungle witches, and they could move him in a heartbeat if they put their minds to it. You might have thrown him off for a while, but he must know you’re here now – and if we just –”

The oblong snaps into three pieces in his hand, the intricate mechanisms breaking apart with a sad _boing_ sound. Thor reaches for it instantly, but Forsung ignores him entirely and scurries back to the cauldron with the central gem. He proceeds to smother the elegant crafting with the puce paste, which sizzles faintly as it seeps into the gears and carvings of the compass, giving off the sharp, bitter scent of burnt orange-peel. For a few seconds, all is silent, save for the faint sizzling.

Then the compass, cauldron and a sizeable chunk of the simmering slime explodes, and for a heartbeat, time seems to slow, the air suddenly damp and humid and filled with the scent of leaf-litter and the hum of insects. _Vanaheim_ , Thor thinks, and then: _Loki? Loki!_

 _Thor!_ resonates faintly in his mind, barely an echo and fading fast. Is he hearing it, or it is just wishful thinking?

“There we go,” Forsung says smugly as time snaps back to normal and slim rains downin wet slaps.

“This keeps happening,” Thor observes, neatly dodging the falling chunks of porridge-like goop and cauldron shards. “I am not fond of your techniques.”

“It works, though,” Brona assures him, smiling worriedly through his mask of slime. “This is very good! Continued colossal feedback, it’s a very good sign!”

“He knows you’re here,” Magnir says loudly, flicking slime from his fingertips. “He knows the connection has been established. So if he wanted to be, he would be here right now.”

“There is something holding him back,” Thor insists. “I know it!”

“He’s trying to wriggle out of your bargain!” Magnir shouts. “He’s gone to the Vanir to shape a new fate! Why won’t you see it? He’s not coming for you!”

“He will,” Thor bellows, feeling the pressure of lightning crackling along his skin. “You do not know him. He loves me!”

“ _You_ don’t know him!” Magnir shrieks, desperately upset, and even through the fog of his anger, Thor wonders why. The youngest Enchanter is on the verge of tears, purple-faced with rage and gesticulating wildly. “You can’t trust them! They lie and cheat and you’ll be the one screwed over!”

“Magnir?” Brona says, reaching for his younger brother. “What are you talking about?”

Magnir slumps against his brother, his ranting turned to muffled gasps. “And I can’t even tell you – why does no-one ever _listen_ to me?”

“I do not know what you have suffered,” Thor says, the sense of loss coiling deep within his belly. Whatever Magnir knows, it does not change how he feels about Loki, now that he has met him. He cannot help but be sympathetic to whatever hidden pain troubles Magnir, but there is no time to be merciful, nor gentle. “And I do not know fate nor magic as you do. But I am your Prince, and as your Prince, I command you to help Loki reach me, for I _know_ that is what he trying to do, just as I am.” He draws himself and glowers at the Enchanters, with every inch of royal authority. He doesn’t like to do it, but he simply does not have time for this. “You will do this for me.”

“We will,” Brona says, one arm around his now sobbing brother, the other lifted pleadingly in Thor’s direction. “Of course we will help you. But would it not be better to try and get you to him? We can, we can use the ComPASS to narrow down where he is Vanaheim, and we can try and get you past their barriers -”

“Won’t work,” Forsung chimes in, still more interested in the artefact in his hand than any of them.

“We can try,” Brona snaps, glaring over his shoulder.  “He has Mjolnir and he is Odin’s son – perhaps -”

“I cannot leave my post again,” Thor says, his heart heavy. “I must go now, and take the warriors to the cliffs. I must trust in you to help me.”

Brona nods, but his expression is despairing. “We will try.”

“Wait,” Forsung says, head suddenly snapping up. “You are leading the troops?”

“Aye,” Thor says. “I have responsibilities I can neglect no more.”

 “No,” Forsung says, enthusiasm finally fading in the face of fear. “My Prince – no! You must not fight! It is too risky – the fate node is warping destiny all around you, and your thread is pulled too taut already. Death is too close to you. You will almost certainly be killed!”

“Not this day,” Thor growls and he turns his back on them all.

***

Sif is waiting at the gate with Volstagg, Fandral and Hogun: the teasing dies on their lips as they see his face, and they fall into place beside him without any of their usual banter.

“We hit them fast and we hit them hard,” Thor says, aware of his scowl but not inclined to do anything about it. Too many of the soldiers gathered here have burns and bruises for his liking, and neither the heat of the afternoon or the noticeable lowering of the sun is improving his mood. “Questions?”

He’s met with slightly puzzled faces from the gathered warriors; they are used to his smiles and enthusiastic battle-hunger, but not this grim, cold determination. A few look like they want to say something – you are not yourself, my Prince, or the like – but since there are no actual questions, he leads them out before anyone gathers the courage to speak up. He can feel their scrutiny on his back as they march towards the cliffs, but he ignores it. He just needs to get this done.

“Thor?” Sif says quietly. “Are you sure this is where you need to be? We can rout a dozen demons without you.”

Perhaps. But he must be seen and the word must spread that the Prince of Asgard remains her staunchest defender – both outside and inside the camp. “I know,” Thor says. “But I will not fail in my duty again. It will go swifter with Mjolnir and I.”

Sif doesn’t argue, and falls back to have a low conversation with the Warriors Three. Thor quickens his pace so he does not have to hear their concerns. He appreciates that he is behaving very strangely today, but they do not understand the stakes and he will not burden them with the knowledge of his potential death, since he has no intention of letting it claim him.

He sets a fast pace and the flat, dusty plain soon gives way to sun-baked outcrops of reddish rock, less impressive than Jotunheim’s spires but just as fantastical in their shapes. The fluted towers huddle together, forming clusters of sheer rock with shadowy depths, but Thor and the warriors march past without sparing them a glance. Fire demons have no interest in dark, shady lairs: they will be basking on the high surfaces of the monolithic outcrops that form jagged cliffs between the larger inter-realm portals.

Sure enough, as the party draws closer, the vague heat shimmers and greasy portal-edges in the distance resolve into distinct crimson and orange forms atop the heights. The demons flicker with flame, but they are solid enough to fight, taller even than the Frost Giants and thickly muscled, with wickedly pointed tails and huge, curving horns. There are perhaps a dozen of them, as Sif said, all lolling in one big group on the top of the cliffs, soaking up the late afternoon sun, and watching the Asgardians with lazy, sneering smiles.

Thor has no patience for them today.

He lifts Mjolnir high and black clouds immediately form overhead, blotting out the infuriatingly low sun and swirling into a heavy, threatening mass. The demons’ tails lash as they begin to shiver and the rocks around them moan in the rising wind, but they do not move. Thor focuses on his rage, his frustration and fury at this impossible day, his aching loneliness and the crawling, building fear, and he funnels it all into Mjolnir as the storm builds and builds.

“For Asgard!” he bellows and the soldiers behind him join in with a ragged cry that is swallowed by the crack of lightning and the booming thunder. Rain pours down, a breath-stealing, bone-chilling deluge that drenches Thor and his party, sudden and unpleasant in its intensity. Lightning jabs furiously at the cliffs, but it is the rain that has the demons howling and leaping from the rocks, slithering over the mud that was sand and grit but moments ago, and it is the rain that has them charging Thor with jaws agape and hissing, spitting flame-maces extended.

This is where Thor should grin and laugh and fling himself into battle, as he always has. But instead, he stands and waits and watches them comes, Mjolnir at the ready, his friends and followers hesitating beside him as the demons race towards them. There is no joy in him for this battle. It is Loki he is thinking of as uru meets flesh and bone, as the wave of demons break upon him and his fellow Asgardians; it is Loki who lingers in his mind as he punches and leaps and smashes, the vibrations of the hammer’s impact juddering through his arm and shoulder and setting the raindrops dancing along his vambraces as the rain continues to thunder down. This fight is as a thousand other fights, but this day is like no other before it, and so Thor has only half a mind on the demons crowding around him or the rain lashing his face.

Where is Loki? And why is he not coming to Thor, if it is as easy as the dwarves and Enchanters seem to think it is?

Is he leaving Thor to die?

“ _Thor_!” Fandral shouts and Thor turns, just as a smoking, steaming fist slams into his chest. It slides off as he rocks with the impact, using his momentum to push the demon aside, bringing Mjolnir in close and drives up with her head until a satisfying crunch lets him know he has broken the demon’s jaw. It screams at him with more anger than pain and cuffs him solidly in the head, stinking of sulphur as it belches fire and brimstone. Thor snarls right back at it and hits harder, again, and again, and again, slipping in the mud churning around his feet as it claws at him, biting and snarling. He loses everything except the pure, primal rage singing to him in the storm as he falls to the ground, locked in the demon’s embrace, determined to put it down for good, his whole world nothing but the foe before him and the feel of Mjolnir in his hand.

At length, the red haze passes, and Thor struggles to his feet while the demon does notAny other day he would be well pleased at such a struggle, for no other Asgardian has been foolish enough to try and tackle one alone, and they are fighting hard in knots of twos and threes to beat the demons into submission. . It has been a long time since he fought a demon and even in the wet they are formidable foes. One or two have already fled, fading into the mist as they race back to wherever they came from – and that reminds him, he must look into the apparent surfeit of portals that Asgard does not know about. Their rejection of magic has prepared them ill, and it seems their enemies greater knowledge is making them vulnerable indeed. Of course, once Loki is with him, he can instruct Thor –

Thor tilts his head up and lets the rain beat upon his face. He must have faith. He must believe in Loki. But it is so hard, when he has so little to go on –

This is how Loki felt, all these years. The realisation hits harder than any of the demon’s blows, and Thor is still rocking with it as his friends chase off the last of the demons and the soldiers crowd around him, looking to celebrate their success. He has to be reminded to send the storm away and let the blazing afternoon sun return, and even as he is patted on the back and his conquest celebrated with wild cheers, he remains locked in his head, struck by this feeling of hope and fear. He barely sees his companions at all, barely speaks to them as they begin their march back to the gate, head whirling once again.

Loki spent his entire life believing in Thor, yearning for him, needing him and yet having no sign, no word, nothing at all. He had dedicated himself to the study of magic just to find him – had left his people and home – had _died_ looking for him, and all without the slightest bit of proof that Thor was out there, save for his own aching heart.

 “Thor?” someone is saying, but Thor ignores them. _I will doubt no more_ , he vows silently. _I need no sign. I_ will _find him_.

***

The afternoon is swiftly slipping into evening as they re-enter the encampment, and Thor can be silent no longer. He has sent his friends ahead, to the Enchanters, brushing away the questions on their lips and real concern in their eyes; he cares for neither, and instead begs for them to hurry and do whatever they can to help the brothers. Next, he abandons his pride and his dignity and asks the warriors with him to spread a simplified story around camp, of how he is trying to reach a jotun deserter in Vanaheim, to see if any in Asgard’s great army have any idea how he can find Loki in the little time he has left. The exhausted and singed soldiers don’t know what to make of his tale or his commanding tone, but he trusts that the message will be passed along despite its strangeness. It is unlikely to help, but he is getting desperate.

Now, he races through camp towards the sorcerer brothers, one hand on Mjolnir, thinking hard on Loki, trying desperately to summon the strange floating connection and failing miserably. He can tell by the way the people passing him look askance and mutter audibly that his reputation is suffering badly from the rumours no doubt spreading and mutating through the soldiers’ ranks, but it does not matter. Nothing matters except Loki. There must be _something_ left to try!

He is half way to the Enchanter’s’ tent when there is a flash of bright light and a few moments later he feels the earth shudder and hears the soldiers screaming.

“An attack!” The cry goes up. “A jotun sorcerer is attacking the gate!”

 _Loki!_ He has come for Thor!

Relief and fear crash together in Thor as the camp springs to life, soldiers pouring from the tents toward the charred remains of the gate. How long has Loki been just beyond the boundaries of Asgard, looking for a secret and stealthy way in and finding none? Was he delayed by the Fire Demons? He must be truly desperate to try and storm the gate alone, no matter how great a sorcerer he may be. Half the army is encamped here and the defences are strong. He will be cut down in a matter of moments.

Thor looks to the sky. The blood-red sun skims the horizon. They are almost out of time.

“Stop!” Thor bellows, whipping Mjolnir in his hand. “Let him be! He is no enemy!”

The soldiers closest to him turn, their faces painted with disbelief, but Thor has no time to explain and launches himself into the sky, soaring towards the gate as fast as he can. He can see a small blue figure surrounded by a sea of shining armour, magelight flaring as he defends himself, great spires of ice and smoking craters littering the ground. But there are just too many Asgardians and Thor can see a trail of blood as Loki whirls and strikes, has to watch as Loki blocks half a dozen arrows but misses one which impales him in the shoulder.

“STOP!” Thor roars as he touches down outside the mob of men, a handful of paces from Loki, unable to get any closer without landing on his own people. “Do not hurt him!”

“Thor!” Loki shouts desperately, but Thor cannot see him any longer, can only see the confused and angry faces of the soldiers in front of him. “THOR!”

“Loki!” Thor shouts back and starts trying to push his way through. He does not need to see Loki to know where he is: he can feel that strange magnetic pull, can sense him just ahead, his whole body tingling with the thrill of proximity.

“Thor, help me!” Loki screams and the sun is low in the sky and the shadows growing fast. Thor snarls and hefts Mjolnir: he is sorry to do it, but he must, he must, and he starts laying about him left and right to clear a path.

The men are too shocked to respond at first but they are highly trained and greatly experienced, and they have been fighting the jotun hordes longer than Thor has been alive.

“The Prince is bewitched!” shouts someone, and then another voice chimes in. “He has been mad all day! It must be this sorcerer! He is in league with the fire demons!”

Instantly, the cry goes up. “Kill the sorcerer! Restrain the Prince!”

“No!” Thor shouts desperately as the mob splits in half, the strongest and bravest of his father’s men turning against him, a multitude of hands trying to hold him and wrench Mjolnir from his grasp. The sun is more than half-way set, the sky streaked with crimson, and it reflects on the helmets and the breastplates of his attackers, shimmering on the edges of their blades and their gauntleted fists.

He fights as hard as he can, breaking bones and drawing blood, but he dares not call the lightning, will not murder these men whom he knows are only trying to protect him and the kingdom. They don’t understand! He is not mad or bewitched, and Loki is no threat – but they will not listen to him and so he stops trying to explain and concentrates on fighting instead, desperately and frantically. There are so many and he is being borne down, being immobilised by the sheer press of soldiers, barely able to lift his arms or move his feet to try and get to Loki.

Loki is screaming, a high wail that rises and falls with his breathing, an unending sound of pain and fury and tears are pouring down Thor’s face because they are so close, so damn close, he can see flashes of light and blue skin through the press of powerful soldiers. Just a few more steps, just a few more –

The sun sets.

Thor dies.


	5. Chapter 5

Thor wakes with the taste of his own blood in his mouth and the Norns staring down at him.

“No,” he says. “ _No_. I was so close – we were so close -”

“Thor!” Loki pushes the Norns aside carelessly, throwing himself to his knees beside him. His hands are on Thor’s shoulders and then tangled in his hair and his face fills Thor’s vision.

“You came,” he says breathlessly. “You fought for me.”

“I am so sorry,” Thor says, reaching up to cover Loki’s hand with one hand, the other pressed against Loki’s cheek. “I tried, all day, to find you. I tried everything.”

“I know,” Loki says; “I know, I felt it, but I was in Vanaheim, I was trapped and alone, I had to fight just to get to Asgard -”

“Loki, I -”

But he cannot finish, for Loki is kissing him, his lips warm and welcoming against Thor’s, curiously cool at first, though his breath is warm. It should be awkward and clumsy but there is a rightness, a naturalness that Thor has never felt before, and desire roars inside him, a great wave of joy and pleasure and need swamping his senses. He deepens the kiss and draws Loki down as he leans further into Thor, his hand sliding to the back of Loki’s neck, the other reaching for his arm and to his back, trying to pull him against him so he can feel more of his skin, feel the beating of his heart against his own –

This is a loud and indiscreet cough and Thor remembers where they are. They reluctantly part, but cannot quite stop touching.

“The day is over,” Urd says bluntly as Thor and Loki scramble to their feet and stand side by side, arms brushing against each other. “You have failed.”

“No,” Thor says desperately. “Please, you must give us another chance. We just need a little more time.”

“Your time is up, dear,” Verdandi says gently. “We are sorry, but we have done all that we can do. It is time to say your goodbyes.”

Thor turns to Loki, agony and fury a bitter taste in his throat, choking off his words. Loki’s face is crumpled in despair and he cradles it between his palms as Loki’s fingers tighten painfully on his biceps. What can he say? He shares Loki’s feelings: a hot sick coil in his belly at the thought of never seeing him again; a desperate, frantic urge to touch and kiss and claim, as if that could change anything; the need to scream and howl and destroy for the sheer injustice of it all, to have this love and this future revealed and then snatched away.

He kisses Loki, again and again, holding him as tightly as he can, trying to learn the feel of his body and the scent of his skin before they are parted. He has never fallen in love before this day, but he knows what he is feeling, as foolish and as impossible as it seems. He loves Loki and he does not think he will ever stop doing so.

They break apart again, shuddering for breath. Loki stares into his eyes and he tries desperately to think of something to do, some way of changing this bitter fate. But this is not something he can fight, no monster he can slay or evil he can overcome. All his might is useless here. This is not a battle he can win.

“No,” Loki says suddenly. “ _No_. We did not fail.”

“What?” Thor asks in confusion as Loki pulls out of his grip.

“The conditions were very specific,” Loki says, turning back to the Norns as a triumphant smile spreads across his face. “One: we had to find each other. Two: we had to prove our love. Well, we both spent the entire day searching for each other. We did find each other, at the end, and we died trying to reach the other. Is that not proof enough?”

“But you did _not_ reach other,” Urd says. “You did not consummate your love, in words or deeds.”

“We did not have to,” Loki replies, with a confidence bordering on arrogance. “We were commanded to _find_ and _prove_. Thor spent all day searching for me; I felt it and I clung to it. I found where he was and came to him. He found where I was and fought for me. He has proved his love to _me_ , and surely that is what is truly required.”

“And I do not doubt that he loves me,” Thor adds, reaching for Loki’s hand as hope unfurls inside him.

“This is what it means to _find_ someone,” Loki says as they stand shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand. “Not to merely stumble across the one who is for you, but to know them for who and what they are. I have not just found my soulmate. I have found _Thor_ , and no-one will take him from me.”

“Aye,” Thor says firmly. “I have found Loki and I will never let him go.” He stares defiantly at the Norns, Loki’s fingers locked tightly with his own.

 “That is only words,” Urd says angrily, “a petty attempt to trick us, to twist the truth into what you wish it to be. It is only a _story_ , not a truth.”

“Oh, yes,” Verdandi says. “Only words. Only a story.”

“And that is what fate is,” Loki says fearlessly. “A story. The way things should be. For if it were what things are, or what they would be no matter what we did, then you would not have given us this chance. You wanted us to change what happened. You asked us to make this right. You could only do so if fate is flexible, if there is a right way for it to be – and a less than right way.”

Thor stares at Loki, fascinated by his quick and twisting mind, trying to keep up on the tangled path he is walking. He recognises Loki’s argument as a weapon, albeit it one he would never think of wielding and one he is not certain he fully understands. But this he knows: Loki is fighting this battle for them, and so he will stand by his side and be his shieldmate, his strong arm against the darkness.

“You need us,” he says aloud, piecing the heart of the matter together. “If we are separated now, this universe is lost. But if we stay together then everything will be as it should be.”

“As _you_ want it to be,” Loki corrects, squeezing Thor’s hand. “We fulfilled your bargain, just not in the way you meant. Two lovers overcoming all the odds to be together. It is a good story. A powerful story. One to last all the ages of the worlds.”

The Norns stare at them in silence and they stare back, united in defiance. If this is how it ends, so be it; it will end with them together, fighting back against everything that would tear them apart.

Urd looks unimpressed with this little speech, and Verdandi is standing with her arms crossed and an eyebrow raised, but Skuld is laughing, a sound like a thousand wings beating.

“Well done, Silvertongue,” Skuld says. “Well done indeed.”

“Sister,” Urd says angrily, “you cannot mean -”

“There are rules,” Verdandi interrupts, gesturing sharply, “for a reason -”

Thor glances at Loki, who is standing tall and confident, but whose grip on Thor’s hand is painfully tight, his knuckles almost white. He looks back at Thor, eyes wide with hope and fear as Skuld laughs again, drowning out Urd and Verdandi’s arguments, a vast concordance of shattering sound, like all the mirrors in the world breaking at once, sharp and silvery like a falling star.

There is a hurricane rising, a great wind howling around him and Loki, and Loki’s mouth is open and Thor thinks he is saying Thor’s name, but he can’t hear him, can’t hear his own voice over the rush of noise. He tries to brace himself against the storm, pull Loki in tight, but the greedy wind is slithering between, trying to tug them apart, knock them down and carry them away. He can’t let that happen but it is, the wind whipping up the fine black sand around the Well of Fate, flinging it like tiny razors against their exposed skin, the pain sharp and biting and Thor is choking, the sand filling his nose and mouth, gritty on his tongue, coating his lungs and making his eyes water, but he keeps hold of Loki’s hand even as his vision fails, desperate not to let go, not to lose Loki nor be lost by him –

***

Thor wakes. He is in a great golden hall, full of crowded benches, luxurious food and beautiful women; it is noisy but full of cheer, and he recognises all around him the faces of his fellow Asgardians, the soldiers of his father’s army.

It is not Valhalla.

He is in the healing hall yet again, and all around the skilled healers are treating the poor souls who had come between him and Loki, and giving them a good meal while they are at it. Sif and the Warriors Three are hovering by the door, fairly vibrating with glee as Thor slowly sits up and looks around.

He cannot see Loki.

Is this a second chance? Has he the opportunity to relive the day he just had, or has he been granted another? Or is this what happens when destiny is cut away, a loop of endlessly repeating events that cannot be changed or undone? Is this a punishment for their defiance? Has he lived and Loki not? He closes his eyes and forces himself to breathe slowly for a few moments. He cannot feel anything – no magnetic pull, no desperate ache, no sense of incompleteness. He feels - fine.

Thor rushes from the hall in a daze, ignoring the shouts of the healers and his friends. It is cold and grey in the pre-dawn light as he makes his way inexorably to the gate where Loki fell, stride steady even as his hands tremble. The soldiers stand aside as he makes his way through them, utterly silent, but he spares them no second glance to determine why. He has to see – see if Loki lies there still, or if he is truly gone. He fears the worst, for he can feel none of the signs he has come to associate with being near Loki. Does this mean he is alone?

The crowd parts.

Loki looks up, eyes brimming with tears.

“Thor!”

Loki stretches out a hand but Thor is already there, throwing himself to the ground and pulling Loki into an embrace. He is real and solid in Thor’s arms, and he sobs against Thor’s shoulder as Thor kisses his hair, half-blinded by his own tears.

There is a buzz of affection and confusion and outright cheering all around them, but Thor does not care and he hoists Loki into his lap to hold him closer. The strange magnetic pull is gone, but this is unquestionably Loki, and joy and love crash over Thor at the very real jotun sorcerer clinging to him before half the Asgardian army.

“We won,” he says softly, brushing his lips over Loki’s cheek. “We have the rest of our lives together, and I promise you will never be alone again.”

“And neither will you,” Loki says, chasing Thor’s lips with his own, eyes berry-bright in the pale sunlight. “You are mine now, giant-slayer.”

Understanding unfurls in Thor. There is no pull, no ache, because he is no longer incomplete. He has found Loki and Loki has found him. They are whole in each other’s arms.

The sun is rising. It’s a brand new day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this got away from me a bit! But huge thanks and love to everyone who has stuck with Thor's No Good Bad Day :)


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